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Construction begins on Reston's Nature House
Forty years after its conception and seven years after fundraising efforts started, construction has finally begun for Reston's Nature House.
"I have been fundraising for so long that my nickname changed from 'Katie, Katie the nature lady' to 'Katie, Katie the fundraising lady,'" Katie Shaw, executive director of Friends of Reston, told the Times. "I will be happy to go back to being the nature lady."
At the groundbreaking on the morning of Nov. 19, nearly a hundred people braved subfreezing temperatures to hear Reston officials praise volunteers and contributors who enabled the project to succeed.
"We are starting today to see Nature House become a reality," said Chuck Veatch, a Friends of Reston founding member.
Friends of Reston was established in 1999 to support the Reston Association in charitable and scientific efforts. Shaw said Friends of Reston considers the Nature House its "flagship" project.
The center's current price tag of $1.5 million is more than twice the original one. In a 2001 referendum, 70 percent of voting members supported the project and gave the Reston Association the go-ahead to pursue building the Nature House. That year, the goal was only $700,000. The center is expected to be completed by late 2009.
Nature House will be a 4,800-square-foot, two-story building, which may become the first in the Dulles corridor to achieve Gold-level certification in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program, known as LEED. It will enable the association to offer nature education and camps year-round to more than 5,000 additional Reston children and adults each year.
The Nature House will be in the Walker Nature Education Center, just off Glade Drive, between Crows Nest Lane and Soapstone Drive. It will replace the current seasonal storage/restroom structure.
Veatch said when the center is built, Friends of Reston will give the house to the Reston Association ... “if they say please."
Reston Association Board of Directors President Robin Smyers replied, "We will say both please and thank you."
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